Will Tom Holland’s SPIDER-MAN Be In VENOM?

If you were like me, you thought the idea of a Venom movie without Spider-Man was like having a campfire in a munitions factory–an idea that wasn’t good to begin with but could really blow up in everybody’s faces. But after both sides repeatedly stated that the characters will not share the screen, there’s a rumor going around that hints that maybe they will.

Jon Schnepp at Movie Talk states that “a little bird” told him that Spider-Man will be in the Tom Hardy vehicle, and it will be the Marvel Studios, Tom Holland version.

Spider-Man is going to be in Venom. For the last couple of months, we’ve been hearing how Sony is keeping it all separated, and Spider-Man is in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but every other character that’s in the Spider-Man universe is separate. All I’m saying is that Spider-Man—and I’m talking about Tom Holland’s Spider-Man—is going to be in Venom.

So, what can we make of this? On the one hand, this sounds plausible. After all, of all the characters Sony has rights to, the one whose origin is most linked to Spider-Man is Venom. Venom is Eddie Brock, a disgraced reporter who blamed Spidey for him losing his job, who melds with the symbiotic alien that used Peter Parker as a host. The alien bonding gives Brock powers that resemble Spider-Man’s. The character works best using Spidey as a foil.

On the other hand, there are so many other logical inconsistencies that make this rumor dubious. One, Venom is aiming for an R-Rating. Marvel is probably not going to be happy to have their toyetic Spider-Man in a movie that kids can’t see. Two, if Spidey’s appearance is just a cameo, it doesn’t seem worth it but if it is a major role, then it be more of a Spider-Man sequel than a Venom film (Schnepp hints that it is somewhere inbetween). Three, the deal was made between Sony and Marvel Studios so that the latter could have hands-on control over Spider-Man. It looks like they are “hands-off” on Venom. Why would they let loose control over Spidey in a film where they have no say on how he is portrayed, especially if they hope to use him again?

So, unless there’s some kind of meta-appearance by Spidey in the film along the lines of Tom Hardy’s Brock watching Spider-Man: Homecoming and becoming inspired to have Spider-Man-like powers that way, there will take a lot of rejiggering of the Sony/Marvel Studios agreement to make this happen. Not impossible, but not very likely either.

William is cursed with the shared love of comic books and of films. Luckily, this is a great time for him to be alive. His writing has been featured on Broken Frontier.com, PopMatters.com and in Comics Foundry magazine.